


Crepuscule

by chidorinnn



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-10
Updated: 2015-07-10
Packaged: 2018-04-08 15:09:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4309962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chidorinnn/pseuds/chidorinnn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sasuke accidentally hits Sakura with his Chidori while fighting Naruto on the hospital rooftop and awakens his Mangekyou Sharingan three years too early. Then it all goes downhill from there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crepuscule

**Author's Note:**

> crepuscule (noun): twilight or dusk  
> a metaphor for all borders in life
> 
> Written for SasuSaku Month day 9's prompt, "trauma"

Sasuke hadn’t seen this much blood since the massacre.

In hindsight, it was stupid, to be set off by something so petty as _jealousy_. It was always about Naruto, these days -- Naruto getting stronger, Naruto surpassing him, Naruto defeating Gaara, Naruto saving Sakura, Naruto Naruto _Naruto_. Sasuke had been so livid for such a stupid reason, enough to try to run him through with a Chidori.

He didn’t count on Sakura getting in the way. She ran between them, screaming for them to stop, but all they could do was continue moving forward, Rasengan and Chidori fully powered. With an almighty yell, Naruto swerved to the right, blasting a hole into the hospital roof. 

But Sasuke had no such luck. His Sharingan captured the moment in perfect detail -- Sakura turned to dodge a fraction of a second too late, tears rolling down her cheeks, and she closed her eyes when the Chidori hit. She didn’t even scream.

Sasuke didn’t know how long he stood there, his hand halfway through her chest, Sakura’s body convulsing with what was left of the Chidori’s electricity. There was so much blood -- pooling around his arm in her chest, dripping to the floor. Sasuke’s chest felt tight, and his eyes burned. Something wet slid down his cheeks that felt too sticky for it to be tears.

They fell together -- Sakura from losing consciousness, and Sasuke from every bit of strength he’d had before disappearing at once. 

“Don’t move.” 

Kakashi stood behind him, his face deceptively calm. Jiraiya stood next to Naruto, frowning at Sasuke contemptuously.

Sasuke opened his mouth to say something, anything, but his voice refused to work. “Don’t remove your arm,” Kakashi said slowly, evenly. “If you do, she’ll bleed out.” But Sasuke couldn’t say anything in return. “Sasuke,” Kakashi said, a little sharply. He gripped his shoulder tightly and gently shook him. “Sasuke, look at me.”

Sasuke couldn’t breathe -- he didn’t have a right to, not while Sakura was dying before him. His eyes were burning so badly that he could barely keep them open. He didn’t register the new Hokage approaching them, one hand wrapped around his arm and the other hovering over the wound in Sakura’s chest with green healing chakra. He didn’t register a group of medics taking Sakura away once his arm was safely out of her chest. 

The Hokage pressed her hand against his forehead much like she did the day he’d first met her. Her expression was closer to pity than disgust as she pushed healing chakra into him, but somehow it made him feel even worse.

When unconsciousness took him then, he wondered why he couldn’t have just died at his brother’s hands before.

* * *

When he woke up again, Sasuke was lying in a hospital bed. His body felt heavy, and he couldn’t summon the energy to move. His mind felt hazy and very, very light, and he couldn’t shake off the feeling that something was terribly wrong.

Kakashi sat next to him, calmly peeling an apple. Sakura was supposed to be sitting there -- she always was -- but Sasuke reminded himself that he hadn’t given her much reason to stay.

“You’re awake,” Kakashi said without looking up.

The memories of his fight with Naruto returned at once, and Sasuke soon found his eyes burning again. 

“I have no right to talk,” Kakashi said. “I wasn’t quite as lucky as you. Sakura’s expected to make a full recovery, which is more than I can say for Rin.” 

He began cutting the apple into thin, even slices. “I won’t tell you that what you did was wrong -- you know that well enough already. But don’t think there won’t be consequences for your actions.” He held the tray out toward him, but Sasuke felt too sick to eat. “You’re suspended. No missions for a month, and no stepping outside the village for another three. If the higher ups are feeling particularly vindictive, then they might strip you of your position altogether.”

It was too light a sentence, Sasuke reasoned. He deserved to die for what he did -- he should have died years ago. So all he did was lay there listlessly, staring up at the ceiling.

* * *

He stayed in the hospital for several more days. It didn’t quite feel like a prison, though that’s what it likely was, given what he did. He was never alone in his room -- there was always a nurse there, or Kakashi. Sasuke never said a word to anyone, never ate so there was an IV perpetually stuck in his arm, never even got out of bed because what was the point? He was as good as dead -- he _deserved_ to die.

One day, the Hokage herself walked into his hospital room. Sasuke had the presence of mind to turn his head and look in her direction as she approached him, but she said nothing as she laid her hand on his forehead again. “I was worried that you might try to hurt yourself,” she said not unkindly. Warm healing chakra buzzed through his head, clearing his mind ever so slightly.

She had a bowl filled with water with her, sitting on the stand by his bed. She gently propped him up with one arm around his shoulders, dipped a small towel in the water, and then began wiping his face with it. “I don’t know if Kakashi told you this, but she’s going to be okay. The official story is that she was injured in a training accident.”

When she was done, she sat down in the chair next to his bed, folding her hands gently in her lap. “You’ll be discharged tomorrow, unfortunately -- there’s nothing wrong with you physically anymore, but you shouldn’t be alone just yet. You’ll be staying with Kakashi for the time being.” 

"It wasn’t an accident.” It was the first thing he’d said in days, and his voice came out as little more than a hoarse whisper. 

Tsunade raised her eyebrow, disbelieving. “Did you mean to hit her?”

“No...” No one was supposed to get hurt -- not even Naruto, Sasuke realized now, even though he’d been the target of his rage at the time. 

“Then it was an accident,” said Tsunade. 

Everything felt startlingly clear, now that the listless haze clouding everything was gone. Sasuke’s eyes started to burn again, but for an entirely different reason. “This wasn’t supposed to happen,” he said.

Tsunade’s expression softened. “I know.”

She stayed with him as he began to break down for the first time since the massacre four years ago.

* * *

He activated his Sharingan for the first time since the fight shortly after he moved into Kakashi’s apartment. His eyes stung almost immediately, and his chakra levels dipped dramatically. But he forced himself to keep his eyes open -- to confirm that his suspicions were true.

Three red ellipses stared back at him, like a six-pointed star in each eye. _Isn’t this what you wanted?_ he could almost hear his brother whisper tauntingly in his mind. _You finally have the same eyes as me._

“No...”

The nurses had taken care to remove all sharp objects within reach in his hospital room, and his weapons pouch had spontaneously gone missing when he went back home to pack his things -- but there was a kunai sitting innocently on the dresser. Kakashi must have forgotten to put it away at some point, he surmised.

He held it tightly with both hands. It wasn’t like he was going to do anything with it, he’d later try to rationalize. There wasn’t any conceivable target before him, no enemy -- so there was nothing for him to strike down.

“Sasuke!”

Before he could process what was happening, Kakashi bolted into the room and grabbed Sasuke’s wrist, forcing the kunai out of his hands. Everything somehow jolted back into place.

_What was I...?_

Sasuke had never seen his sensei look so panicked. “Are you all right? What happened?”

“Nothing,” Sasuke answered dully. “You just left this here.”

“I left this here,” Kakashi echoed faintly, picking up the dropped kunai and quickly pocketing it. “I see... I’ll be more careful from now on.” The smile he gave Sasuke looked fake and hollow. “I brought dinner, so let’s eat.”

Sasuke nodded, grunting in affirmation. He took one last look at the mirror before following Kakashi to the living room, at his newly awakened Mangekyou Sharingan.

There _had_ been a target to strike down at the time, he realized. The target was _himself_.

* * *

Sakura woke up two days later. “She’s healing quite nicely,” Kakashi said over breakfast. “She still has a few broken ribs, but it’s nothing that won’t heal soon.”

“Mm,” Sasuke said quietly, listlessly, as he poked and prodded the egg rolls before him with his chopsticks.

“We should go visit her later,” Kakashi said, just a little too forcefully.

“I can’t,” Sasuke said in response.

Kakashi sighed and set down his chopsticks. “Sasuke...” Then he shook his head. “Never mind. Take your time. Visit her when you’re ready.”

While Kakashi was undoubtedly visiting Sakura in the hospital, Sasuke wandered around the village. He had no set destination in mind -- he just went wherever his feet would carry him. There was something like static in his mind, making it impossible to think clearly.

He stopped by the training grounds, at the memorial stone. None of the Uchiha names inscribed upon it belong to people who had died in the massacre. And if Sasuke lost touch with reality just enough, he could see Sakura’s name inscribed there, too. He could see her turning to face him as his Chidori hit her. He could see his hand halfway through her chest.

“You _bastard_.”

Like Sakura had done before, Sasuke turned to dodge Naruto’s punch a fraction of a second too late, and he was sent crashing to the ground. It didn’t even hurt -- it was nothing compared to what Sakura had gone through. “Don’t you feel bad at all?” his other teammate ranted, looking furious. “She wanted to see you! You tried to kill her, and she still wanted to see you!”

“Just leave him, Naruto,” said Jiraiya, who stood with his back to the other side of the memorial stone. “He’s not worth it.”

Still, Naruto raised his fist to hit him again. This time, Sasuke didn’t try to dodge. He deserved every blow Naruto wanted to deal him, after all.

But the blow never came. “That’s enough,” said Kakashi, having caught Naruto’s arm mid-air. He didn’t look angry or upset -- just tired.

Jiraiya scoffed. “You’re _defending_ him?”

“I’m not condoning his actions, if that’s what you’re asking,” Kakashi said icily, “but I don’t appreciate kicking people while they’re down, either.”

“Tch,” Jiraiya said contemptuously. “You’re all letting him off the hook too easy.”

There was a spark of killing intent for just a moment, and then Kakashi relaxed. “Sasuke, why don’t you head on home? I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

Sasuke swallowed and nodded. All anger was gone from Naruto’s expression when Sasuke finally collected himself and left -- his teammate looked at him like he was a stranger. 

* * *

“Aren’t I banned from missions?” Sasuke asked dully when Kakashi handed him a slip of paper the next morning.

Kakashi’s one visible eye crinkled into a smile. “This will be our little secret,” he said. “Go along, now. You only have until 16:00 to get this done.”

The first step of the mission was to go to the Yamanakas’ flower shop and order a bouquet of daffodils. Then, he was to take the daffodils to a certain patient in the hospital. It was so simple, it didn’t even qualify as a D-rank.

Ino Yamanaka was working at the flower shop. Sasuke hadn’t seen her since the preliminaries for the third part of the Chuunin Exams, but she still looked positively thrilled to see him. “Sasuke-kun!” she gushed. “I’m so happy you’ve finally decided to visit!”

“I need flowers,” he said bluntly.

Ino hung her head. “I should’ve known there was someone else...” But she perked up easily enough. “So, who’s the lucky girl?”

“Someone in the hospital.”

She gasped dramatically. “It’s Sakura, isn’t it?”

“Someone in room 202--”

“It _is_ Sakura!”

But Kakashi had said... he should have known. It was such an obvious ploy -- how could Sasuke have fallen for something so _stupid_?

The girl before him was obviously going out of her way to be polite. She hated him too, just like Naruto and Jiraiya and likely Kakashi as well. He deserved nothing more.

“Never mind,” he whispered as he turned to leave.

But Ino was faster. “Oh no you don’t!” His reflexes had dulled considerably since his hospitalization -- that was the only plausible reason for how Ino could slip in front of the door and block his way so easily. “It was a training accident, right?”

“No.”

She sighed. “Yeah, yeah, I know. You feel awful because of what happened. But you know what? It’s in the past -- you can’t change it.” She linked arms with him and pulled him back to the cashier counter. “What you _can_ do, though, is try to make things up to her and make sure it never happens again.”

She was right, a small part of him insisted. “It won’t change anything,” he said instead.

Ino puffed her cheeks in annoyance. “Well... yeah! Did you forget that part about not being able to change it, because it’s in the past?” 

But what was the point, if what Sasuke did couldn’t be forgiven to begin with?

“You’ll want daffodils for this,” Ino continued as she made her way to the corner of the store. “She likes those.” 

She all but pushed him out of the door once she thrust the bouquet into his hands without asking for payment (”You guys can thank me later!”) and Sasuke began the long, arduous walk to the hospital. 

But at the front doors, he couldn’t bring himself to take a single step further. He couldn’t face her -- he didn’t have the _right_. So for what felt like an eternity, Sasuke just stood there, rooted on the spot, only barely holding onto the bouquet tightly enough so that it didn’t fall.

Something clapped him on the back soon afterward, and he startled. “Hey.” The smile Naruto gave him was only slightly strained, but it was infinitely better than his harsh glare from the day before. “Listen. What happened to Sakura-chan... it’s my fault too.”

“I was the one that started it,” Sasuke said dully, staring at the ground.

“Yeah, but I fought back,” Naruto retorted. “You never would’ve used that technique if I didn’t egg you on like that. So...” He pat Sasuke on the back again. “It’s both our faults, okay? You don’t have to face it by yourself.”

They started walking up the hospital stairs together, for the first time without any animosity between them. “Hey, uh...” Naruto started. “Sorry... about yesterday. I kind of lost it, and...” He looked up at the hospital ceiling. “Are you... um... doing okay? Kakashi-sensei went on and on about how you might kill yourself if we pushed you too hard, so...” And then, Naruto jumped back with a shriek. “W-Wait, I wasn’t supposed to say that! Damn it...”

Sasuke stopped. He was a monster that needed to be taken down... right? That was how it had always been, especially since the incident on the hospital rooftop. That was why he had the Mangekyou Sharingan in the first place.

... but why would Kakashi let a monster like him stay in his home? Why would Sakura care enough about a monster like him to actually want to see him after he’d hurt her so badly?

The only plausible explanation was that Sasuke wasn’t a monster to begin with -- but that made very little sense.

“Hey!” Naruto said a little too firmly, a little too loudly. “It’s both our faults, remember? You just... you just got the short end of the stick. It could’ve been me that hit her instead! Or maybe _both_ of us could’ve hit her!”

_What you can do is make things up to her and make sure it never happens again_ , Ino had said to him before.

_It’s in the past_ , he reminded himself. _You can’t change it._ “This is never happening again,” Sasuke said quietly. He had to repeat it to himself several more times before he could start believing it, and even then, just barely.

“Damn right, it’s not!” Naruto cheered. A nurse glared at him seconds later for shouting in the hallway.

* * *

They found Sakura in her hospital room sitting up in her bed, reading a book that rested in her lap. She looked mostly uninjured, except for scars zigzagging up her neck. Whole. Alive.

She looked up as they entered, and her eyes filled with tears. Naruto flung himself at her, pulling Sasuke with him, and Sakura wrapped her arms tightly around them both. “I’m sorry,” Sasuke said before either of his teammates could get a single word in. “I’m so sorry.”

“I’m sorry too!” Naruto wailed with a large sniffle. 

“I’m sorry,” Sakura sobbed on her end. Team Seven didn’t stop apologizing to each other for a long time, but when they were done, Sasuke felt as if a weight had been lifted from his chest.

His eyes didn’t feel quite so cursed anymore. Maybe, just maybe, he deserved to _live_.

Sakura took one of his hands, and Naruto took the other. “Kakashi-sensei told me everything,” she said. “You’ll tell us, won’t you? When you start feeling bad again.”

Naruto nodded emphatically. “Yeah. You’re not facing this alone.”

And in that moment, Itachi and the rest of his clan felt a million kilometers away. For the first time in a long time, Sasuke smiled. “I will.”


End file.
